


Made your mark on me

by andonewillbringhisfall



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 15:50:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15027989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andonewillbringhisfall/pseuds/andonewillbringhisfall
Summary: Soulmate AU where the things your soulmate loves show up on your skin.





	Made your mark on me

**Author's Note:**

> Is it... yes it is... NEW CONTENT?! Yup. I haven't written any fic in six months so I'm a lil rusty but here we go, this was a request from @pixiecodesnowbaz on Tumblr based on this post: https://pixiecodesnowbaz.tumblr.com/post/174992785505/snowbazbcwhynot-phan-cannons-has-anyone-done

BAZ

Growing up, my tattoos changed all the time. My soulmate’s interests were many and usually short-lived. There were ladybugs running up and down my arms for about a week when I was six, which then disappeared all at once and were replaced with a stuffed Paddington Bear. That went too after a while, when a tiny scruffy kitten took its place, then was gone by the time I woke up the next morning. As we got older, I had less and less tattoos on my arms, just enough – a football, various food items – to make me think he was okay, not enough to make me think he was happy.

The day Simon Snow discovered magic, I felt the shift in the atmosphere. We all did. I didn’t know what it was yet, and I didn’t much care, too focused on the new tattoo I had discovered on my ankle. A sword. It was the only remotely cool thing I had ever seen tattooed on my own body, and the only one that hinted that my soulmate could possibly be a mage. Or at least more interesting than a regular Normal.

When I met Simon Snow, I thought nothing of him except that he was my family’s enemy and it was truly unfortunate that I would be forced to be his roommate. Or not; depending on how you looked at it. From a strategic point of view, it might be very useful, but it was hardly likely to make my experience at Watford more enjoyable. It didn’t help that he was a useless buffoon.

A few days later, the Watford gates appeared just above my wrist. That meant my soulmate had to be in my year. Not long after that, I started discovering new foods; a little tattoo of roast beef at a random point on the side of my leg, and a sour cherry scone on my left elbow. I knew he liked food, and I’d been expecting this.

About a month into first year, when Snow and I had already established that we hated each other’s guts, I caught him practicing with his sword.

That was the first time I yelled at him. I wanted to know why he had a sword that looked exactly like the one on my ankle. Instead, I threatened to set him on fire if he ever used it on my side of the room again.

‘It’s the Sword of Mages,’ he announced proudly. I think he felt smug about having something that I didn’t. ‘It only answers to me.’

It took me a little longer to realise I finally had a tattoo of a wand, on my lower back. What kind of mage _wouldn’t_ have loved their magical artefact since childhood?

The answer was obvious.

He was pretty fucking cute. I couldn’t deny that.

The night I finally accepted that it had to be him, I slept peacefully. I thought if we were soulmates, the universe would take care of it. Of everything. I thought it meant he would someday stop hating me. I thought it meant we’d at least become friends, or even allies, before the end of the year. Someday, I would love him, and he would love me back. I thought maybe the Crucible hadn’t fucked me over after all.

A few months later Penelope Bunce’s face showed up on my shoulder. I was furious, but it soon became obvious that he only loved her like a friend, albeit very fiercely.

Every time I growled at him for bouncing that ridiculous red ball of his, I thought of the little red dot tattooed on my arm. Every time he called me evil in second year, I sneered at him and thought, _we’ll see how you feel in a few months’ time_. Then it was a year. Then two. By then I realised that it didn’t matter that the things we loved were tattooed on each other’s bodies. I’d made him hate me so much that nothing could ever change his mind.

But back in first year, I thought all I had to do was wait.

 

SIMON

I only got my tattoos the day I first went off and discovered my magic, though Penny and Agatha both say they’ve had theirs for as long as they can remember. I have a violin, a football, music notes that I think might form an actual song, a few cars, and way more books than I can count. I’m pretty sure they’re specific books, but they’re too small and there’s too many of them for me to figure out what they are. The weirdest one I’ve got is a tattoo of a pair of hands, darker than my own skin, just above my elbow.

I still don’t know who my soulmate is. I’ve had theories over the years, girls I’ve seen at football games, people I’ve seen carrying violins through the school hallways, pretty much anyone I ever see in the library. At first I figured it had to be a boy, because of the cars, until Penelope informed me that anyone can like cars or anything else regardless of gender. I actually thought it might be Penny for about two hours in first year before she showed me her tattoos, which were clearly from an American. (An American football. A pop tart. And like me she has a lot of books.) I even considered that it could be Baz the first few days after we met, because he had a violin, he played football, _and_ he had a lot of books, which gave him three out of three. But Baz hated me from the moment we met, so I quickly forgot about that theory.

Imagine that. A soulmate who thought I was worthless. The universe wouldn’t fuck up that badly, even for me.

At least, I forgot about it until fifth year, when I noticed a new tattoo of a flame on the inside of my wrist. I immediately thought of him; Pitch is the House of Fire, and Baz is obsessed with it.

That was around the time I started following him around the Catacombs. I knew something was wrong about him, and I was so close to figuring it out, and then the day I found the first rat it all fell into place.

_Vampire_.

Vampires are flammable. Vampires fear flames. And if they fear them, they probably don’t love them.

I spent the next three months trying to prove it. And talking about nothing else, if Penny’s to be believed.

‘It’s almost like you _want_ him to be a vampire,’ she said.

That was also the year Agatha and I started dating. Her soulmate loved seashells, a ratty notebook we never figured out the purpose of, and golden retrievers. She used that as explanation when she broke up with me about eight months later.

‘I love dogs,’ I argued.

‘So does everyone,’ Agatha countered. ‘This is a specific dog. It’s someone’s dog.’

She was right, and I knew it. We both always knew. She didn’t like soccer, or cars. She only read for fun and had few favourites. She definitely didn’t play the violin.

Penny met her soulmate in fourth year, when he came to Watford on exchange. Micah recognised her straight away, because he has a tattoo of her parents on his shoulder. Penny took some more convincing, and only agreed that he was her soulmate after she challenged him to name almost all of his favourite books and the spell scrawled across her ankle. (It’s **now you see me, now you don’t**.)

Even Garreth knows who his soulmate is. And Rhys. Not Baz, though. At least, I don’t think he does. He wears long sleeves all the time, even on the football pitch. I know he’s cold a lot because he’s always snapping at me to close the window in our room, but after eight years of living together it can’t be an accident that I’ve never seen even one of his tattoos. Maybe he doesn’t have any. Maybe he does and they’re embarrassing. Maybe he knows who it is and he doesn’t want them.

I’ve never asked him why he keeps them hidden, even when we were little.

I try not to think too much about why.

 

 

***

 

 

BAZ

Normally when I walk into our room in the evenings, Snow is already downstairs, probably impatiently lurking around the dining hall waiting for dinner. Or hacking at things in the Wood; I don’t need to know what he does with his spare time. Today he’s in our room, sitting on top of his desk with his feet planted on his chair. He has his head bent and that stubborn look on his face that he gets when he’s about to go into a funk. (I’ve seen it a lot when he catches me watching him in the dining room, and starts ranting to Bunce. Probably insisting that I’m plotting to bite him in his sleep.) It takes me a second to realise what he’s doing.

He’s holding a black marker in his right hand, his left sleeve is pulled up to expose his arm, and he’s carefully blacking out his tattoos.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I snarl, letting the door slam shut behind me.

Snow draws on a few more lines without looking up. He’s drawing over my violin.

‘Snow,’ I say when he doesn’t answer, my voice low.

He pulls his sleeve back over his arm, now decorated with uneven black patches, switches the marker to his left hand and starts working on his right arm. I stand watching him for a moment. I’m trying to figure out how I can stop him without overstepping my role as nothing but his archnemesis who has no reason to care if he wants to cross out his soulmate’s tattoos.

He works his way up to his elbow and scribbles over my mother’s hands. It makes sense that he has them; the feel of her rough flame thrower’s hand holding onto mine is the most vivid memory I have of her. It’s the only thing I have that I know is mine, a real memory not from a photograph or someone else’s story.

All I have left of my mother is what’s tattooed on Simon Snow’s arm.

I take a step forward, glowering at him. ‘What are you doing?’

He narrows his eyes. ‘What does it look like?’

‘Why are you erasing them?’ I snap.

I have Penelope Bunce’s face permanently tattooed on my body. And various food items. And an actual fucking goat. (It’s a small mercy that I never had to walk around wearing Wellbelove’s face, even when they were dating. I woke up every single morning worrying about it that whole year.) If anyone should be erasing their tattoos, it’s me. At least the tattoos I gave him are aesthetically pleasing.

Maybe he’s figured out that they’re mine.

‘My soulmate doesn’t love me so I don’t see why I should wear the things they love on my body,’ Snow says.

I scoff. ‘Do you even know who they are?’

‘Yes.’

He puts the marker down on the desk and looks up at me, his stupid blue eyes defiantly meeting my gaze. (He doesn’t put the cap back on the marker.)

‘And do you love them?’ I ask.

His eyes flick down to my chest and my arms, right over where my tattoos are, though he doesn’t know that. ‘I don’t know.’

He grabs the marker again and yanks his shirt down over his shoulder, then starts blacking out the little stuffed manticore there.

_That’s Mordelia’s, you oaf_ , I want to yell at him.

‘Stop doing that,’ I say instead.

‘Nope.’

I sigh. ‘You idiot. Maybe you should take your shirt off and go look in the mirror.’

He frowns.

‘Right between your shoulder blades,’ I say.

He stares back at me with his jaw dropped, stupid curls hanging over his forehead and his ridiculous eyes wide and hopeful. I’ve never hated him more.

He stands up and rushes into the bathroom. I fight not to roll my eyes.

The picture of his face appeared sometime in the middle of fifth year, a few days after I tried to set that chimera on him. It wasn’t long after he and Wellbelove started dating, so when I first saw it, I hoped it meant that she loved him and it had all been a crazy mistake. That our tattoos had been nothing more than coincidence.

But it was no coincidence that I had already been watching him when the tattoo appeared, sleeping with his back to me. I’d been doing that more and more often. I told myself it meant nothing, because he wore his tattoos for all the world to see and no matter how much I watched him, his own face never appeared anywhere on his body. Which meant I didn’t love him.

Until it did.

And apparently nobody’s told him about it. I suppose, being his roommate, I’m the only one who’s seen his bare back.

Crowley. It’s been nearly three years, and he hasn’t noticed it. I shouldn’t have told him.

Snow finally walks out of the bathroom, fully clothed, at a much slower pace than he went in.

‘Maybe I was wrong about my soulmate, then,’ he says.

‘No shit, Snow.’

‘No, I mean, maybe they’re not who I thought they were.’ He bites his lip. He doesn’t sound nearly as happy as he should, considering he was throwing a fit over his soulmate not loving him just minutes ago, and lo and behold, it turns out they do.

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘Because that person would never love me,’ he says.

 

SIMON

It doesn’t usually take Baz very long to come up with a retort, or at least find something to say, but he’s silent for long enough that I start to get antsy. Then he raises an eyebrow. ‘Crowley, Snow, you sound so disappointed. Do you want your soulmate to love you or not?’

Of course I want my soulmate to love me. I have to fight to keep from reaching up to touch the back of my neck, the closest I can get to the tattoo. I don’t know how long it’s been there. Baz would know. Baz has probably always known, and the git never felt the need to tell me. I can’t believe I missed it.

This means my soulmate is someone I know. Someone who knows me well enough to feel this strongly about me.

But that doesn’t make sense. Because I thought I knew who it was. There’s only ever been one person who fit the bill, no matter how long I ignored all the evidence. There’s only one person who could have made their mark on me like this.

But then maybe I was wrong, because he definitely doesn’t love me.

‘Does your soulmate love you?’ I ask. I’ve never asked him about his soulmate before.

Sometimes I think the only way I’ll understand how I feel is if I see the evidence tattooed on his arm.

‘No,’ Baz says shortly. ‘He doesn’t.’

‘Why do you keep your tattoos hidden?’ I ask.

‘Because they’re none of your business,’ he snaps.

‘Is it because you know who it is and you don’t want it to be him?’

He glares at me, and I’m expecting him to storm out, or roll his eyes, or make a comment about how the poor sod who loves me is a delusional idiot and we probably deserve each other. I know he’s thinking about it.

I should leave it alone. Before I find out something painful, something I can’t un-know. But I meet his glare and wait.

‘I’ve never wanted it to be him,’ he says finally, reluctantly. ‘It’s only ever been a torment.’

I nod, because I know exactly what he means. Slowly, I walk up until I’m standing right in front of him. Not quite in his space enough to be threatening, but close enough.

‘Can I see?’

He backs away. ‘Absolutely fucking not.’

‘You’ve seen mine.’

‘That’s your own damn fault.’ He crosses his arms.

‘Show me.’

‘No.’

I take a deep breath. ‘Look, Baz, I think we both know –’

‘ _No.’_

He knows. He knows what I’m trying to say, and I don’t think he can even bear to hear it. He must have always known. He’s been hiding his tattoos since the day we met.

I take another step closer, and he pulls his arms tighter around himself.

I growl at him. ‘I have the right to at least know if my soulmate doesn’t want me. You can see mine and I can’t see yours. That’s not fair.’

‘Snow, I don’t care if you have a problem. You have your own fucking face tattooed on your back. I’m _never_ going to have mine.’

I stop, taking in the look on his face. I can’t tell what it is, but I’ve never seen it before.

I swallow, and take a tiny step forward, keeping my eyes on his the whole time, making sure he’s not trying to move away. He doesn’t.

My hand inches forward, taking his wrist and, when he doesn’t pull away, tugging it towards me. His jaw is clenched, and he looks kind of terrified, but he lets me.

 

BAZ

He pulls up my sleeve – slowly, like the idiot is trying to torment me – revealing my tattoos one by one. The red ball that's still on my arm even though he lost the thing years ago. The Watford school gates. Bunce's purple ring, faintly outlined as though it's in the middle of casting a spell. A football, the only one we both have, even though the git isn't even on the school team. He touches his fingertips lightly to each one. I'd say he was trying to kill me, but he's so thick I don't think he even realises what he's doing.

'I don't understand,' he says finally.

'I'm not going to spell it out for you.'

His grip on my arm tightens. 'No, what I don’t understand is… I know you don't want me as your soulmate, but then why do I have a tattoo of myself?'

I’m too scared to move. I just stand there, my body tensed, barely even breathing because he’s so close he could probably feel it.

'I'm not spelling that out for you, either.'

He sighs, dropping my arm. I snatch it back to my chest.

'Just talk to me,' he says. 'Tell me what you want, because I don't get it. If you want me, I'm yours.'

Crowley.

‘Snow –’

'I've always been yours,' he says.

I never should have let this get so far. I should have let him cross out my stupid tattoos and never told him about the one on his back.

'You don't have to say that just because you think the universe decrees it any more than we have to be friends because the Crucible cast us as roommates,' I snap. 'If the Crucible can be wrong, what's stopping the entire universe?'

He growls. ‘I’m your soulmate, Baz. I just told you where I stand. If you don’t want me, just tell me. You don’t have to be such a twat about it.’

‘I’m not being a twat, I’m being practical. We’re enemies. We hate each other. We’re not going to suddenly start feeling differently just because we’re supposed to be soulmates.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to be enemies.’

‘Maybe you need to stop trying to do what you think you’re supposed to and just do what you want for once, Snow.’ I sigh. ‘Don’t feel obligated to change your mind about me because you think it’s fated.’

He steps forward and gets in my face again. Maybe I should just kiss him to shut him up. At least that would shock him out of this.

‘I know what I want,’ he says. ‘I’m asking what _you_ want.’

I want his hands back on my skin. I want him to forget he ever saw the tattoo of his face. I don’t want him to know that he’s been tearing me apart since the day we met.

‘Fine,’ he says, finally dropping his gaze. ‘If you won’t give me an answer, I guess… I guess I know.’

His cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright.

‘I’m sorry it had to be me,’ he mutters. Then he brushes past me, towards the door.

 

SIMON

Maybe he’s right. The universe made a mistake. Maybe we’re just defective.

I know we’re enemies and we don’t trust each other, and I know there’s almost no chance it could ever work. But at least I want it to. At least I want to try. But he’s had seven years to make up his mind about me, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

‘Snow,’ he says.

I stop.

His voice is quiet. ‘You have a tattoo of your face. You already have my answer.’

I turn around. I think I know what he’s saying. I just don’t understand how it can be possible. Or why he would still act like this.

Maybe that’s just what he’s like. Always needing to have the upper hand, just in case.

‘I kind of need to hear you say it,’ I say.

He shakes his head. ‘You already know.’

I wait. I want to push it. Demand that he tell me. I want Baz – Baz who calls me a numpty, pushes me down staircases, and torments me until I go off – to say that he feels something for me.

But he’s right. I have the tattoo. And I know he doesn’t have one, yet. So maybe I should concede, this one time.

‘Alright,’ I say. I walk up to him and put my hand on his cheek. ‘I guess there’s one way to find out.’

And I kiss him.

 

***

 

He will tell me. Someday.

He’ll say it, and then his tattoo will appear, like magic. (It _is_ magic.)

Or he’ll wait until he sees the tattoo, and then I’ll steal his thunder and say it first. It would serve him right for waiting that long.

But either way, someday – soon, I hope – we’ll both say it out loud.

Just not today.


End file.
